


If you want to, you know you can run.

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Canon Fix-It, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Sam comes home.A short "Mirror Image" rewrite.
Relationships: Sam Beckett/Al Calavicci
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	If you want to, you know you can run.

**Author's Note:**

> I can only imagine the day that they said  
> No the world isn't flat, it's a circle instead  
> You can run to wherever you want to now. —New Constellations, Ryn Weaver

“Why did you start Project Quantum Leap, Sam?” Al asked patiently.

“To help people,” I leaned an elbow on the bar and rested my head in my hand. “You of all people should know that.” 

Al shrugged off my irritated tone and picked up another glass to wipe. “To help people or to help a specific person?” 

“What are you talking about? To help _people,_ plural.” 

Al chuckled as he turned and placed the glass on a shelf. “You always have been too stubborn for your own good, you know that?” 

I sighed again and leaned my head against the old wood of the bar, closing my eyes for a brief moment. I was frustrated and a little bit afraid. But more than anything I was tired. Tired of leaping, tired of helping, tired of putting on other people and walking around in their lives. I wanted to go home.

A voice snapped me out of my self-pity. An intimately familiar voice, the voice that had tied me to home and to who I was for the last few years. “Move over, will you?” 

“Al!” I gasped as I straightened up. The bartender raised an eyebrow at me over his shoulder before walking away up the bar with a drink for another patron, and my Al— _my_ Al was here at last— smiled at me like I’d only ever seen him smile a few times before. 

“Hey, Sammy.” 

“Al, thank god you’re here. Did Ziggy have a hard time tracking me down? I guess she would have, wouldn't she, I don’t know where I am, exactly, but it’s the day of my birth and there’s too many different people here for me to—” Al patted my hand and I stopped abruptly, looking down at where skin touched skin, where I could feel the warmth of his palm, solid and steady. I pulled away and stared at him.

“I’m not actually here at all, Sam,” Al said with a small incline of his head. “The real Al, he’s trying to help Ziggy and Gooshie lock onto you right now. They’re not having much luck.” 

“Who are you?” I swallowed and stood up, suddenly remembering another leap, another Al. “You’re him again, aren’t you? You’re the devil.” 

Al rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. “That wasn’t the devil then and it isn’t the devil now and you know it.” 

I took a small step back and heard one of the bar stools scrape across the floor as I bumped into it. “I don’t believe it.” 

“Well, believe it, Sam, because all of this?” he waved an arm, encompassing the bar, the crowd of familiar faces, the man behind the counter, “All of this is happening in your own mind. It’s not some place _God_ made to talk to you, it’s a place you made to talk to yourself.” 

I felt cold, frozen in place. There was a lump in my throat so big I could hardly breathe and when I tried to speak I felt my voice shake and tears form in my eyes. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying, you’re controlling the leaps. You could have come home any time, if you really wanted.” 

I laughed painfully, the sound dragged from me almost against my will. “Click my heels and I’ll wake up, is that it?” 

Al closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “No, Sam, not like that… this isn’t a dream, not really, but... “ He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Sam, why did you build the accelerator? Why time travel? Who did you start the project to help?” 

“All of you!” I burst out. “You, and Tom, and Katie, and Donna… but—” 

“Everyone you wished you could have been there for. Everyone you wished you could have saved. And you did,” Al smiled again, smaller and sadder this time. “You saved everyone you love. You can come home now.” 

“I couldn’t give you Beth back,” I said, feeling shame wash over me as I remembered it, as I remembered how I’d felt watching Al hurting and realizing I couldn’t stop it without risking destroying my own timeline and the timeline of the project. The moment I realized if I saved Al I’d lose him, and Project Quantum Leap, and the person I’d been every day since I’d known him, because who would he have been without the open wound of Beth we’d worked through together? Would we have even met? And who would I be without Al? I'd been too selfish to risk any of it.

“And you think that’s what I want now? Another shot with Beth?” Al pressed me quietly.

“Isn’t it?” I felt a tear spill down my face and took a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady the way my chest was heaving with the effort of not crying. 

“Sam,” Al murmured, stepping closer, “you know me better than that.” 

He took my hand in both of is, and I crumbled, realizing as I did so that the bar had gone quiet, that everyone else had vanished, leaving me and Al and the weight of my grief and longing. I leaned my head on his shoulder and sobbed, knowing suddenly as I did so that Al, the real Al, was trying to find me. 

I could feel him, the connection left behind by the simoleap and all those years observing from the imaging chamber. Our brainwave patterns twined together as our timelines had been for so many years. For a moment there was a pull, Al searching for me, and I realized, as the Al who wasn’t really there put his arms around me, that he had been for a long time, far longer than I’d been leaping. That I hadn’t want to let myself be found. That as much as I told myself I was helping people, as much as I believed me being trapped leaping through time was doing good in the world, part of it was also that I’d been running from something. 

Was it really as simple as admitting I was tired of running? 

And with that I leaped home. 

I staggered out of the accelerator and caught myself on the wall, head jerking up at the yell echoing through the room. “ _SAM?!"_

Al was hurrying towards me, his brows furrowed in disbelief, and I felt my face split into a grin and renewed tears bloom in my eyes as I all but sprinted to meet him. 

“It’s me,” I said as I reached him, saw him beam, saw the tears form in his eyes. “It’s me,” I reassured him as he pulled me into a hug, as he tucked my head under his chin. “Oh, _Al,_ ” I choked as I started to cry in earnest, shaking against him.

“You’re alright, kid, I’ve got you,” He said, his voice gruff and soft in my ear. “I’ve got you.” 

“I let you find me,” I hiccuped, and Al hummed. 

“We lost track of you for a while there, and by the time we got a lock on you we realized you were headed back,” Al told me, giving me a squeeze. “Are you saying you did that?” 

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Already what had just happened, the in-between sort of place I’d been in, was fading from memory, but one important thing I’d learned there remained. “But I have to tell you something.” 

Al let me go of me just enough to press a kiss to my forehead. “I know, Sam,” he said. There were tears on his face and, following an impulse before my better judgement could reassert itself, I brushed at them with the back of my hand. Something passed behind his eyes as I did, and his repeated “I know,” was barely a breath against my lips as he moved in closer. 

When we kissed, we fit together like we’d been made for it. I felt Al shiver and trembled myself in response, remembering the long years we’d spent working on the project and how every leap had seemed to draw me closer to the understanding that had brought me back again.

If we fit, I thought, it was because we'd made something worth coming back for. 


End file.
